Logan
Judge Logan was Dredd's assistant and would serve as the Chief Judge of Mega-City One from 2141 onwards. While brave when called to combat, he was dogged for decades by a string of extremely bad luck, unfortunate events, and serious injuries whenever he entered the field. His main competency was an administrator, which saw him rise from assisting investigations to being the top choice to run the recently recovered megacity. Biography When he first appeared in 2125, he was already a known assistant for Dredd and was helping with the detective work on a cannibal case. The next year, Logan was part of the investigative team trying to stop Total War's series of nuclear terrorist bombings. Total War A young and eager weaker, it would turn out he was being kept out of the field due to his hip "playing me up".Prog 1506 In 2128, when a young and eager worker, he was asked to help Dredd draft the team that would retrieve the body of Eustace Fargo from the Cursed Earth. Feeling he was always overlooked for the interesting jobs, he volunteered himself for the mission and promised to push through his hip pain if needed. During the mission, he turned one battle around by leading the Lawmaster bikes (on autopilot) in a bombing run against enemies. Unfortunately, in the start of a series of bad luck, he would be severely wounded in action and require major surgery, including an artificial lung, arm and spleen. Origins By Chief Judge Sinfield's time, he had been promoted to senior judge.Tour of Duty, prog 1689 Shortly afterwards, he personally discovered the evidence which resulted in Chief Judge Sinfield's conviction and removal from office.Tour of Duty, prog 1693 During Chaos Day, he was part of the team trying to run down the Sov agents and went on a trip to Ciudad Barranquilla to investigate a mobster with ties to the agents - being forced to back off when confronted with a large number of mobsters. When the Sovs broke the Dark Judges out of containment, he again lost his arm in an encounter with Judge Mortis and was hospitalised, waking up to discover almost 350 million people had died. The encounter left him traumatised, unable to get the experience out of his head, and he would continue to deteriorate from supernatural contamination. Psi-Judge Cassandra Anderson was finally sent to try and cure him in 2136, two years after the fact, and learned he was being used as a bridge to their reality by the Sisters of Death.Dark Justice After recovering (and gaining a prosthetic arm), he became the quietly competent Sector Chief for Sector 6 and turned it into the best performing sector in the city. Barbara Hershey and Dredd both agreed that Logan should take over as the new Chief Judge in 2141; the man himself felt he wasn't yet ready for the role but was talked into it by Dredd. His cautious nature showed when he appointed a new Council of Five, making his deputy from Sector 6, Ada Porter, his Deputy Chief; consulting with Tek-Division to find a suitable candidate (TJ Han); appointing a known senior Street Judge, Gerard Fulsome; and in appointing another Admin figure, Hector Robles. However, he also was determined to rule on principle and so recognised the importance of Mechanismo by appointing the robo-judge Harvey to the Council. Rumours of impeachment immediately circulated and Fulsome quit, but - despite Dredd's advice - Logan felt he could not back down and reassign Harvey as a purely advisory role. He similarly refused to back down even when Harvey requested this, even as he was rattled by the sight of a ten-million strong march against him. Unknown to Logan, Judge Farrow of the former Council was preparing a coup against him. When the senior Judges cornered him and threatened to arrest him if he didn't change his government, Logan informed them: "Over my dead body." The arrival of Dredd at the last second allowed him to successfully force the plotters to surrender and he ordered them under arrest. The crisis was averted when Harvey was killed preventing a bomb - while Logan would still have a Mechanismo advisor, he wouldn't "rub their city's faces in it" and put Beeny on the Council instead of a robot (Fulsome rejoined). He discovered afterwards that Harvey had, in fact, blown himself up and faked it was the bomb to resolve the crisis without Logan losing face; the Chief Judge saw this as proof of the Mark 8s' devotion to duty.Machine Law One of his first acts was to order an old Sov craft shot down for the sake of the city, despite Dredd still being in it.Prog 2125, "Unearthed" Part 2 He would soon be drawn into the sharp end of foreign policy, attempting to prevent the Euro-City criminal the Red Queen from taking over the Mediterranean Free State and later trying to prevent the rogue robot-ruled state of Guatemala from threatening the megacities with nuclear arms. Two Logans? In the Big Finish audio Grud is Dead, a'' Judge Logan appears and is voiced by Jez Fielder. A proudly certified pilot with two tours on Justice One, in 2126 he assisted Judge Dredd in tracking a foreign spy - who turned out to be Judge-Inquisitor agents of the Vatican City, after Devlin Waugh. Logan was irritated to find the "Grud botherers" in the city making demands and that the Council of Five had "rolled over" diplomatically to return the agents home. Dredd had Logan fly him, the captive Waugh, and the Inquisitors back to the Vatican. Unfortunately for him, the Inquisitor Sextus was running a conspiracy and shot Logan through the spine in order to crash their stratbat. The paralysed Judge had to talk Dredd into landing. ''Grud is Dead audio drama This appearance was counted as one of Judge Logan's on the old 2000AD website - which is a problem since in that audio story, Logan dies! Notes *Logan is a homage to the Dredd superfan Stewart Perkins, alias W.R. Logan, who had worked as a researcher and adviser for John Wagner on several stories (including Origins) and an archivist for 2000AD. Before this, he started the Class of '79 fanzine - inspiring multiple other small-press work and several future 2000AD creators - and co-created the original version of Harry Heston. While he died in 2016, Perkins' namesake lived on. 2000ad.com: "Stewart 'W.R. Logan' Perkins RIP"Wymondham and Attleborough Mercury: "Army veteran’s 2000 AD comic dream is realised, four months after his death"Down the Tubes obituary *"Dark Justice" was originally advertised for 2013 but didn't start until December 2014. As he mentions Psi-Division help being arranged in "Day of Chaos", this gives the impression the overworked, post-plague Justice Department has taken this long to get round to him! References Category:Characters Category:Mega-City One Judges Category:Judge Dredd Comics Category:Judge Dredd Comic Characters